Monday, January 20, 2014

El Salvador honours Archbishop Oscar Romero

The President of El Salvador, Mauricio Funes has announced several new initiatives to honour Archbishop Óscar Romero this week.

He has changed the name of the Hall of Honour of the Presidential
Mansion after Archbishop Romero and unveiled a large portrait of Romero,
whom he has called the spiritual leader of El Salvador.

President Funes
has also said that he is now seeking to change the name of El
Salvador's International Airport after the slain prelate.

On 20
April last year, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the
Pontifical Council for the Family and the official promoter of the Cause
of the Archbishop Romero of San Salvador, revealed that the Cause of
Romero's Beatification had been 'unblocked'.

The Archbishop, who was preaching at a Mass in the town of Molfetta,
to mark the 20th anniversary of the death of the diocese’s Bishop
Antonio Bello, said: “Today, the anniversary of the death of Don Tonino,
the cause for the beatification of Archbishop Romero was unblocked.”

His office later said that no more would be said until there was something “concrete” to report.

Julian Filochowski, former director of CAFOD, who met Archbishop
Romero many times, said: “It is wonderful to learn that the Cause for
Archbishop Romero’s beatification has been ‘unblocked’ by Pope Francis.
This is a carefully chosen word and it means that the Cause will leave
the siding where it has been parked for more than a decade, whilst
accusations that Archbishop Romero’s homilies went beyond the bounds of
orthodoxy were examined by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine
of the Faith. It will now be put back on the regular road to sainthood
under the auspices of the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints -
and in all probability it will be fast-tracked since the beatification
of a martyr does not require a miracle.

“Archbishop Romero is already a hugely popular icon of holiness
across the Catholic Church worldwide and within the Anglican Communion;
but he is perhaps especially important to Pope Francis who in his words
and symbolic actions has seemed so clearly to emulate Romero’s lifestyle
simplicity and his closeness to the poor.

“Maybe 2014 will be Romero’s year - as Archbishop Paglia seems to
anticipate; we can certainly now hope, and indeed expect, to celebrate
the centenary of Archbishop Romero’s birth in 2017 with his sanctity
formally recognised by the Church. Santo subito!”